Social Media

Street Food Fanatics Get Tasty iPhone App & TV Combo

Invoke Media, creators of HootSuite, launched Eat St. on Monday, with the vision of creating the "the best street food app in the world," in the words of the company's senior strategist, Grace Carter. The mobile and web-based app is launching in conjunction with a television show called Eat St. The series debuts on the Food Network Canada on April 6 and on the Cooking Channel in the U.S. on April 12.

Once a user chooses a vendor page, he or she can browse through information including the vendor's hours, location, menu, specials, photos and Twitter feed. Users can also tap the Google Maps image on the vendor page to get directions to the food truck's location.

In much the way that businesses are able to claim and manage their locations on Foursquare, vendors can claim their locations on Eat St. After claiming their venue, vendors are able to change their location, add photos, clarify operating hours and input specials. Unlike Foursquare specials, though, Eat St. specials are not limited to particular types of deals, as the specials feature is currently an open text field. The downside, of course, is that the system doesn't have a method for "unlocking" specials or identifying users who qualify for them.

Upon launch, the app is already loaded with more than 2,000 popular street food vendors in 184 cities across North America. While the app will initially be focused in this region, future iterations will include the ability to crowd source new vendor entries from users.

About The TV Show

Produced by Paperny Films and hosted by foodie and Canadian comedian James Cunningham, Eat St. explores street food culture across North America (sans Mexico, for now). Cunningham provides a behind-the-scenes look at street food carts, teasing out the quirky stories behind them, sampling their food and interviewing customers about their thoughts on the carts' offerings. In its first season, the show will showcase 52 street food vendors.

Cross-Promotion

The mobile app and TV show will benefit from cross-promotion between the two properties. The Eat St. mobile app has a prominent "TV Show" button on the home screen, in which users can find full-length episodes of the show. The app is currently loaded with a preview, but as episodes roll out, they will become available via the app.

During airings of the show, Food Network will be airing bumpers — quick announcements between the show and commercials — promoting the app. Food Network will also be running an advertisement referencing the app.

Business Strategy

Invoke and Paperny Films saw an opportunity to create a digital experience that was related to the Eat St. show, but could also exist on its own. Thus was born their joint venture, Eat St. Digital.

Carter and her team see the Eat St. mobile app as more than just a TV show tie-in. While it is tied to a multinational television show launch, the app can easily stand alone as a street food resource, with or without the TV show. "We saw a real potential for uniting and cultivating the street food community, both the vendors and the people who love to eat the food," says Carter.

The app is partially funded by the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, which is dedicated to empowering and advancing the Canadian broadcasting system, along with additional self-funding from Eat St. Digital and a mix of other funds from its partners.

Eat St. Digital doesn't have a concrete monetization strategy as of yet, but Carter explained that the app has the capability to implement light advertising in search results, for starters. More strategically, though, the team is looking into the possibility of collecting market research that would be of value to street food vendors, such as information on hot areas and menu items in particular locations. Furthermore, building on the specials feature for vendors, the team is also open to brand partnerships that would entail related brands offering specials across particular locations.

Competitors

Eat St. is entering a fragmented street food apps market. Most street food apps are locally focused. Some prime examples include New York Street Food and Los Angeles Street Food. While these apps do a great job of pulling local information, they aren't scalable. Both currently outrank Eat St. as far as the number of vendors represented in each city, but neither offers crowdsourcing, a feature Eat St. plans to include in upcoming iterations. If Eat St. is able to gain a sizable following, it will likely surpass these niche apps.

Another related tool is Cartspotting, launched by visual food guide Foodspotting last year. Although it doesn't seem to have taken off (as @cartspotting's last tweet was in October 2010), the microsite was created to help users find nearby food trucks via Twitter. Vendors update their locations via Twitter and users follow their favorite food trucks to locate them.

While some food trucks are stationary, many are mobile, changing locations on the fly, based on foot traffic. As a result, the ability to update followers on their locations is essential. With Eat St.'s app, vendors are able to update their locations via Twitter, and the Twitter stream shows up on the vendor page, but this feature doesn't currently change the vendor's location on the map. Carter says that this feature will be improved in the app's next release.

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